


In The Eye

by Kastaka



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haymitch waits for the Quarter Quell Reaping, surrounded by the shadows of the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaizoku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaizoku/gifts).



The heat haze has made everything unreal. The silence and the heat are competing for the crown of 'most oppressive', with a decent showing from the Peacekeepers and their machine guns. Not even a baby dares to wail.

The spectres flicker around the edges of sight. The lithe Careers, blossoming into bloody slashes; a flight of birds and a fountain of blood; the way that an eye gives under a blade, the ugly wreck of the polished District 1 girl's skull, the obscenity of brains and blood. 

He no longer remembers standing here for the first time, no longer remembers the crowd of boys that were reprieved by the sound of his name; no longer remembers even if they were, if he was first or second to be called; but without the constant haze of the white liquor to keep them at bay, he remembers the dead.

But he grips the rope until his knuckles turn white, because he cannot let himself forget that he is here, he cannot lose himself to the ghosts. He cannot let that idiot boy, that overgrown ox with his herbivore ways, take her to her death. 

Either way they have only the ghost of a chance - he cannot believe Peeta will make a competent mentor, hasn't had the chance to take him into the Capitol and introduce him, and this year amongst all years there will be powerful followings behind their competition.

And their competition, well, he'd always been the village idiot to them. He'd played to it, of course he had - and he did genuinely value some of them. Just not as much as her. And they, he thinks, value him, too; from some of them, it might be worth a moment's hesitation.

\----

When she came to him with her traumas, his first reaction was to guffaw uncontrollably for minutes, until she was incandescent with rage.

"Kid," he snorted, "you never killed anyone. That was the most utterly bloodless and murderless Victory we've seen in years."

"I killed Cato!" she replied. "And what about the tracker jackers? Those were me - that's a horrible way to…"

"Did anyone even bleed on you?" Haymitch demanded. "Even Rue was a pretty corpse, run through the middle, you could look at her face and think nothing had happened."

"You don't get to talk about Rue like that," she replied bluntly.

"I respected Rue, you know?" he said. "The trackers were all her, you'd never have been ruthless enough if her baby-eyes hadn't been egging you on. Sure, she couldn't do them alone, but she used you."

"You are impossible," declared Katniss.

"I tell the truth, kid," replied Haymitch. "And don't you feel better already?"

"No," Katniss insisted. She ceased stalking back and forth across the garbage-strewn floor and collapsed dramatically into an abandoned wooden chair.

"Oh, cut it out," said Haymitch. "You want to get into it? You're not sad because they're dead. You're wrecked because people were trying to kill you, which tends to mess a kid up even if you don't have to knife any of them in the eye."

He wished he hadn't said it as soon as it was out of his mouth; not because of her, but because now he was feeling exactly that weird release of pressure as part of the axe's swing, seeing the fluids run down her face.

"So what?" asked Katniss. "It's done, I'm screwed, and I should start drinking the rest of my wretched existence away?"

"I didn't start drinking until my first dead tribute," Haymitch growled.

"Oh, great," replied Katniss. "So actually, I just have more and more hideous shit to look forward to?"

"And you can't even die," Haymitch added, "because then Prim and your dear mother would be booted out of the lovely house and having-enough-food to which they have become accustomed."

Katniss slumped in the chair and gazed at the ceiling for a moment, but it was clear something had started to niggle in her mind. Sure enough, in a couple of moments she looked across at Haymitch again, with the light of curiosity in her eyes rather than the sharp bite of her attempts to inflict her pain on someone else.

"So why aren't you dead?" she asked.

Haymitch laughed again, bitterly. "I left it too late," he said. "Or, I wasn't selfish enough. Take your pick."

She looked like she was attempting to draw him out on the subject, but suddenly he was tired of the conversation.

"Scram, kid," he said. "Peeta would love you to go cry on his shoulder. Me, I think you'll do okay whatever."

\----

He can't tell if Effie is shaking, or if it's just the heat haze between them.

"Peeta Mellark," she reads, attempting to sound sprightly, but he can hear it catch in her throat. 

The ghosts assail him. They call out to him. The Careers tell him that he has done his time, that he had a real victory, that he should be proud and unbowed - that he should not be thinking of throwing his life away for some flukey kids who didn't even get their hands damp. The pink birds sing out the good that he could do as a Mentor, how the Capitol is already hooked on the love story, about how he knows the buttons to push and the levers to pull in a way Peeta never will.

Maysilee chimes in through bloodless lips, stained everywhere with the red from her throat, that she loves him, that she believes in him, that he should not throw his life away.

He dismisses them all with a wild swing of his arm, pushes Peeta back, stumbles towards the aisle. "I volunteer!" he attempts to exclaim, but it comes out as more of a croak.

The mics pick it up and echo it.

"We're all dead now," Peeta whispers at his retreating back.

Maybe he's right. Maybe Peeta won't be able to sell the desperation to get her back, its genuine nature clouding the salesmanship; maybe not having them both on screen together will spoil the magic; maybe Peeta is more perceptive than he gives him credit for, and means it in the wider sense, where Snow believes that Haymitch has reneged on his deal - that suicide by Arena is still suicide - and the very life of District 12 will be the victim.

But the spirit of District 12 is almost dead since the Tour and the new Peacekeepers, and Katniss is still very much alive.

It's only the shadow of a chance that he can give her, but it is more than the dough-eyed baker can promise.


End file.
